Linda C. Wisniewski is a librarian and writer in Bucks County, Pa., where she teaches and speaks on memoir writing, practices yoga and enjoys her retired husband’s cooking. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has been published in newspapers, magazines and anthologies.
My memoir's subtitle is A Woman's Journey to Peace With Scoliosis, Her Mother and Her Polish Heritage. Inner peace is my personal daily practice. Peace is that hummingly alive place where I don't fight. I don't do mental violence to myself for looking crooked in my clothes, I don't do emotional violence to my mother for not being a feminist like me, and I don't do verbal violence to myself ...
The cards have started appearing in my mailbox. My birthday is very close to Halloween. Sometimes, people send me the ones colored orange and black with cats and witches on the front. They read Happy Halloween Birthday! The thing is, Halloween was my mother's birthday. People still get them confused - wasn't I born on Halloween? Nope. But that's okay. Close enough. My husband was born on ...
It took a lot of years and a lot of livin' before I realized that forgiveness isn't something you do. Forgiveness is all about what you don't do. You don't wake up and replay the argument when they hurt you, practicing better retorts. You don't think of what they did and said years ago to wound you, while you take a morning shower today. You don't remember, over breakfast, that you were abused ...
